This month's way to wellbeing spotlight is on Learn and Discover

Every second week in August, the focus will be on a different element of Learn and Discover and we'll be producing material to support and promote this. Please visit the other items in this menu for more details.

Don't forget, if you want to plan your own activity and need inspiration, examples of previous events can be found here. As face to face activities aren't possible during the current situation, we'd love to hear from you with alternative suggestions. Please send these to studentsupport@manchester.ac.uk.

Resources

You can find ready-made resources here or, if you want to create your own, visit the University's brandsite for the assets you'll need (you'll need to scroll down a little to get to them!).

If creating your own, you’ll need to buy InDesign (in Adobe Creative Cloud) from the University's Electronic Software Delivery system.

You should also ask IT to install the University fonts, they can do this simply for you here.

Social media

Don't forget to follow us on instagram: @uomwellbeing.

Every Wednesday the Wellbeing Team will be promoting positive wellbeing to encourage students to take care of themselves during these uncertain times. 

We'll be handpicking different events and activities students can take part in throughout the day at home - from mindfulness sessions to live gigs.

This will be promoted through our instagram page @uomwellbeing and on our student support website. You can find a clickable PDF schedule for the day here, this will be updated every Tuesday. Further assets for social media can be found below.

If you'd like to run your own activities to promote positive wellbeing and need some inspiration, take a look at this event ideas page. Due to the current situation, we know that face to face activities won't be possible so if you have any suggestions for alternative events, we'd love to hear from you: studentsupport@manchester.ac.uk

Remember to use the hashtag #uomwellbeingwednesdays in any social media posts!

Suggested copy for newsletters etc:

Looking for a wellbeing boost? Every Wednesday your Wellbeing Team will be running ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays!'. These Wednesdays will include wellbeing events and activities that you can take part in from home throughout the day - from mindfulness sessions to live gigs. Follow @uomwellbeing to get involved!

Assets:

(Right-click to save images- social media and instagram story assets will be updated every Tuesday)

As part of Learn and Discover, this week we are encouraging students to learn and discover more about themselves, by focusing on their character strengths. Character strengths are the positive parts of our personality that impact how we think, feel and behave. A knowledge of character strengths promotes self-awareness and acceptance of oneself.

The benefit for students knowing what their signature strengths are is that they can exercise these in their personal and academic lives, allowing them to feel an increased sense of wellbeing. By knowing their lesser strengths, they can understand their past experiences better and learn how to further develop these strengths for the future.

We have created this new page on our Student Support microsite that is all about character strengths that you can direct students to. The page contains links to a number of tests that students can take to find out their character strengths, as well as tips on how they can build on their character strengths.  

We have also produced this character strengths worksheet, where students can record their top 5 character strengths and are encouraged to think about the ways that they can use these character strengths in their day-to-day lives.

We have also produced a series of Instagram posts that we would encourage you to share across your channels over a 6 day period. The Instagram posts are in sets of 3, with each set relating to one of the Six Ways to Wellbeing and how exercising that way can strengthen particular character strengths. The idea is that by incorporating each way, students will feel an increased sense of wellbeing with the added bonus of developing various character strengths.

We recognise the difficulties that many students will have faced in recent months around feeling socially isolated. We want to encourage our students to reconnect with others, but to do so in a safe way by looking after themselves socially. We also want to highlight the need to be mindful of everyone being at different stages; some of us may be ready to meet face-to-face whereas others might not be able or ready to meet yet.  

With this in mind, we have created a new webpage on our Student Support microsite that contains lots of advice and a number of resources to support students with the transition as lockdown eases. There is specific advice for students who might be feeling socially isolated or socially anxious, as well as dedicated advice for students who are ready to socialise, and for those who don’t feel ready just yet.

To encourage students to connect with others, we have also created a new resource that has ideas for face-to-face activities, alongside remote alternatives. We would also encourage you to share this infographic about how to feel socially connected whilst being physically distant for people who are feeling isolated. We are also conscious that as September approaches, some students may be feeling nervous about moving into a house with multiple housemates, so you may like to re-share this resource that contains tips for living in a busy household.

As part of Learn and Discover, we are encouraging students to educate themselves on good study skills. Recent times have meant that usual routines and methods of study have been disrupted, but despite this it is still important for students to study safely and smartly. Whether students are studying online or on campus, having an awareness of how to study well and how to avoid poor practice is key.

We’ve created a new page on the Student Support website for you to direct students to, all about good study skills. The page contains lots of tips about how to study effectively, as well as information and guidance on how to avoid academic malpractice and where to access extra support.

We’ve also created this social media infographic on the five step LEARN study method that we hope you will share on your channels. This is a topic that is important throughout the academic year, so we hope that you will refer back to these resources and share them to students in the future, also.

Due to the current situation, we've asked the student Wellbeing Champions for feedback and suggestions of activities they'd like to run. We'll add content here as soon as we know more.